El Paso girl
Granados’ book shows gritty but humorous look at life in ‘Chuco’

 The mountains, the heat, the fights, the 1970s cars, the offbeat family members, the characters.
 Christine Granados tucked away memories and retained a connection to all of these things and many more while growing up in El Paso.
 Reflections on her decidedly non-Ozzie-and-Harriet upbringing influenced her decision to write.
 Now, at 37, the El Paso native and Rockdale resident has published her first book of literary fiction, “Brides and Sinners in El Chuco” (Arizona University Press, $14.95).
 Granados’ stories are not “happily ever after” tales though plenty of humor is laced throughout. They show a sometimes disturbing side of life with “underbelly” characters in that border town.
 “Some of it is loosely based on characters and relatives I knew growing up, but it’s all fiction,” Granados said. “
 As Dagoberto Gilb, a PEN Hemingway Award winner and a 2003 finalist for the Book Critics Circle Award, wrote: “...Granados is helping to re-orient Latino literature away from poignant, romanticized goody-goodyism, toward stark, complex storytelling that will remind the many of us who have grown up imperfectly what it is to be living on the embattled fronteras of Mexican and American.”
 Book critic Rigoberto González wrote, “Brides and Sinners in El Chuco celebrates a community’s prejudices, flaws, and shortcomings as lovingly as it critiques them.”

Growing up in ‘Chuco’
 “El Chuco,” the nickname given to the town by men there in the 1930s, was a colorful place to grow up, Granados recalls.
 “We were raised in South El Paso and I didn’t speak English until I was five years old. That’s when my father worked for Coca Cola and moved us out to the suburbs,” she said of the fast-growing east-side of town.
 “But my transition into school life was easier than my brothers and sisters. I picked up English quickly since I was so young and they all struggled with it more,” she said.
 While her family was better off than many in that town, poverty is another thing that is rooted in her stories.
 “It really affects your sensibilities—when you see people without electricity, running water or food to eat. It makes you appreciate everything so much more,” she said of seeing the poorest neighborhoods and those across the border in Ciudad Juarez.
 “Even here in Rockdale, the poor are a lot better off than in Juarez,” she said. “It’s just like growing up in Rockdale, the small town atmosphere and knowing all your neighbors affects who you are as an adult.
 “Being raised on the border of a third world country affects who you are and the way you view life,” Granados said. “It’s made me more cautious, skeptical, resilient and not prone to take what I have for granted.”

Learning her craft
 Granados spent much of the past five years earning her master’s degree in Creative Writing from Texas State University, which is becoming one of the top programs in the country. She wanted to begin exploring fiction after having written for many daily newspapers and editing a now-defunct Latina fashion magazine called Moderna.
 “The second semester in the program, I got pregnant with my first child, which meant I had to slow down,” she said. “And in this age of the ‘Hurried Woman Syndrome’, it was no easy task. I dropped out a semester, then took only one class per semester.”
 When child number two showed up, her time became more constrained.
 “Every time I sit and type, I have blinders on to the chaos in my house,” she laughed. “It’s a constant battle I wage and it’s something I think everyone, Latina or otherwise, will be able to relate to.”
 Under the tutelage and encouragement of Gilb, Granados managed to get her first book together and University of Arizona Press took an interest. Gilb invited her to share one of her stories with the audience at the Texas Book Festival and the response was encouraging.
 “He’s from El Paso and has a working-class background and has had articles in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and he’s been on National Public Radio’s ‘Fresh Air.’ What vato from El Paso can claim that?” she said. “Having a similar background, he’s been a real inspiration to me.”
 
‘Off-kilter’
 Even the cover art reflects the quirky, funny-but-kind-of-pathetic characters. Photographer Joel Salcido, who worked with Granados at The El Paso Times, is now a photographer for Texas Monthly and other publications. He photographed mannequins in a Korean-owned wedding store near the downtown El Paso-Juarez International Bridge. The mannequins wigs and even a hand from a male dummy are off-kilter.
 “I thought it was the perfect image,” Granados said. “It’s not at all about the stereotype of the Mexican mother making tortillas.”
 The book is not Granados’ first publication—she penned five biographical books of celebrities for young readers for Mitchell Lane publishers in the late 1990s. But she counts this as her first “real” offering.
 Between juggling duties with her husband, two young sons and some civic activities, Granados is working on her second book, which will be a novel. She plans to travel extensively throughout the Southwestern U.S. to promote “Brides and Sinners.”